By ERIC TUCKER and ALANNA DURKIN RICHER, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — The FBI has continued its personnel purge, forcing out additional agents and supervisors tied to the federal investigation into efforts to overturn the 2020 election. The latest firings took place despite efforts by Washington’s top federal prosecutor to try to stop at least some of the terminations, people familiar with the matter told The Associated Press.

The employees were told this week that they were being fired but those plans were paused after D.C. U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro raised concerns, according to two people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss personnel matters.

The agents were then fired again Tuesday, though it’s not clear what prompted the about-face. The total number of fired agents was not immediately clear.

The terminations are part of a broader personnel upheaval under the leadership of FBI Director Kash Patel, who has pushed out numerous senior officials and agents involved in investigations or actions that have angered the Trump administration. Three ousted high-ranking FBI officials sued Patel in September, accusing him of caving to political pressure to carry out a “campaign of retribution.”

Spokespeople for Patel and Pirro didn’t immediately respond to messages seeking comment on Tuesday.

The FBI Agents Association, which has criticized Patel for the firings, said the director has “disregarded the law and launched a campaign of erratic and arbitrary retribution.”

“The actions yesterday — in which FBI Special Agents were terminated and then reinstated shortly after, and then only to be fired again today — highlight the chaos that occurs when long-standing policies and processes are ignored,” the association said. “An Agent simply being assigned to an investigation and conducting it appropriately within the law should never be grounds for termination.”

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The 2020 election investigation that ultimately led to special counsel Jack Smith’s indictment of Trump has come under intense scrutiny from GOP lawmakers, who have accused the Biden administration Justice Department of being weaponized against conservatives. Sen. Chuck Grassley, the Republican chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, has released documents from the investigation provided by the FBI, including ones showing that investigators analyzed phone records from more than a half dozen Republican lawmakers as part of their inquiry.

The Justice Department has fired prosecutors and other department employees who worked on Smith’s team, and the FBI has similarly forced out agents and senior officials for a variety of reasons as part of an ongoing purge that has added to the tumult inside the bureau.

The FBI in August ousted the head of the bureau’s Washington field office as well as the former acting director who resisted Trump administration demands to turn over the names of agents who participated in Jan. 6 Capitol riot investigations. And in September, it fired agents who were photographed kneeling during a racial justice protest in Washington that followed the 2020 death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police officers.

A St. Paul-based home health care company plans to close in coming months, laying off more than 400 employees.

Dependable Home Healthcare notified its staff and clients Tuesday that it will suspend services at the end of January as the company winds down its operations, according to a letter to Minnesota officials from CEO Katie Fleury. The company provides services allowing the elderly and those with disabilities to live outside of institutional settings.

Fleury cited “business challenges and upcoming regulatory changes impacting the Minnesota home care industry” as the reason behind the closure. Fleury did not immediately return a phone call seeking comment Tuesday.

The announcement comes just days after Gov. Tim Walz ordered the state Department of Human Services to pause payments to providers of 14 Medicaid-funded assistance programs while these programs undergo a third-party audit to look for fraud.

Among the programs affected by the payment freeze is Personal Care Assistance/Community First Services and Supports, which was among the offerings of Dependable Home Healthcare, according to its website.

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State officials estimate the audit could delay payments to service providers by up to 90 days.

Among the 406 employees expected to be laid off as Dependable Home Healthcare winds down its operations, 368 are caregivers, while the rest are administrative staffers, Fleury’s letter said.

The company, located at 23 Empire Drive in St. Paul, will permanently layoff employees in six phases, beginning Jan. 3, 2026, and concluding March 13, 2026, according to the state Department of Employment and Economic Development.

The company has been in business since 1991.

By DARLENE SUPERVILLE, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — Former Vice President Dick Cheney may have been a legendary figure within the Republican Party, but for President Donald Trump, he was part of a long list of people he viewed as political opponents.

While White House flags were lowered to half-staff in remembrance of Cheney on Tuesday, there was no fanfare, and Trump made no comment about Cheney’s death on social media. His press secretary Karoline Leavitt did not mention his passing in a press briefing until she was asked by a reporter — and then made only perfunctory comments.

“I know the president is aware of the former vice president’s passing. And as you saw, flags have been lowered to half-staff in accordance with statutory law,” Leavitt said.

Trump was not so quiet about Cheney on the campaign trail last year, speaking regularly about him and his daughter, Liz Cheney, a former member of Congress who bucked most of her party to become a leading critic and examiner of Trump’s desperate attempts to retain power after he failed to win reelection in 2020. Dick Cheney backed his daughter, and in a twist the Democrats of his era could never have imagined, ultimately said he would vote for Trump’s Democratic opponent, Kamala Harris.

While campaigning in Traverse City, Mich., Trump told Arab and Muslim voters that Dick Cheney’s support for Harris should give them pause, saying he “killed more Arabs than any human being on Earth. He pushed Bush, and they went into the Middle East.”

Trump told conservative media personality Tucker Carlson that he was “never a fan of Cheney” but said he thought that the former vice president would back him, anyway. “I was a little surprised because I actually thought that Dick Cheney would go with me over his daughter, and he didn’t,” Trump said at a Oct. 31, 2024 campaign event with Carlson.

In his first term, Trump had granted Cheney’s former chief of staff, Scooter Libby, a pardon for his 2007 conviction of lying to investigators and obstruction of justice.

“When I became president, I actually called Dick Cheney. I said, ‘Let me ask you about Scooter Libby,’” Trump told Carlson, saying he thought former President George W. Bush “didn’t have the courage” to pardon Libby.

“I released him. Cheney called me, he said, ‘it’s one of the nicest things I’ve ever seen done in politics,’” Trump said.

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Trump’s public antipathy to the former vice president was sparked by excoriating criticism from Liz Cheney. She was vice chair of the Democratic-led special House committee that spent months investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol and concluded that it was an “attempted coup” and a direct result of the defeated president’s effort to overturn the 2020 election.

“President Trump summoned a violent mob,” Liz Cheney, who at the time represented Wyoming in the House, said during one of the committee’s public hearings. “When a president fails to take the steps necessary to preserve our union — or worse, causes a constitutional crisis — we’re in a moment of maximum danger for our republic.”

The elder Cheney later cut a television campaign ad for his daughter as she sought reelection to the House. That bid failed, largely due to her anti-Trump stance.

A conservative, Dick Cheney sounded an alarm about returning Trump to high office.

“In our nation’s 246-year history, there has never been an individual who was a greater threat to our republic than Donald Trump,” Cheney said in the 2022 television ad. “He tried to steal the last election using lies and violence to keep himself in power after the voters had rejected him. He is a coward.”

Associated Press writer Calvin Woodward contributed to this report.

Associated Press

Former Vice President Dick Cheney battled heart disease for most of his adult life, a life extended thanks in part to a heart transplant in 2012.

Cheney, who died Monday due to complications of pneumonia and cardiac and vascular disease, had his first heart attack at the unusually young age of 37. He would go on to survive four more before his heart declined enough to qualify for that transplant.

Heart disease is the nation’s No. 1 killer and Cheney’s decades of health problems illustrate how heart trouble can accumulate — as well as the varied treatments.

Cheney’s heart history

Over the years, Cheney underwent quadruple bypass surgery to reroute blood flow around clogged heart arteries as well as less invasive artery-clearing angioplasties. He had a pacemaker implanted to monitor his heartbeat. He also experienced blood vessel problems in his legs.

Heart attacks damage the heart’s muscle, eventually making it harder to pump properly. After Cheney’s fifth heart attack in 2010, he acknowledged “increasing congestive heart failure.” He received another implant, a small pump called a “left ventricular assist device” or LVAD. That device took over the job of his heart’s main pumping chamber, powered by batteries worn in a fanny pack.

Cheney had a heart transplant in 2012

Then in March 2012, at the age of 71, Cheney received a heart transplant. Like him, more than 70% of heart transplant recipients live at least five years, many longer. Cheney was older than a typical heart transplant recipient; most are 50 to 64 years old. But he was one of 362 people age 65 or older who received a new heart in 2012, according to the U.S. Organ Procurement and Transplant Network, or OPTN.

Heart transplants are increasing, but not fast enough

There’s a huge need for more transplantable hearts. Hundreds of thousands of adults suffer from advanced heart failure yet many are never placed on the transplant list, in part because of the organ shortage. According to the organ network, 4,572 people received a heart transplant last year. That number of has grown gradually since Cheney’s — there were 2,378 transplants in 2012. So have the number of recipients 65 or older — 905 last year.

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

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